Chapter 10 - The Man Who Controlled the Cameras
Police located Elias before sunrise.
He was sitting inside his car across from Willowmere Road, watching the empty house.
Hale ordered him out at gunpoint.
Elias raised his hands and complied.
“I knew the ledger would implicate me,” he said.
“Then explain the payments.”
“They were not mine.”
“They use your initials.”
“Someone used my identity.”
“Like Lauren used a different surname at the bank?”
Elias looked toward Claire, who watched from behind an officer’s vehicle.
“This is what the Director does. He builds evidence in advance. He creates a guilty person before he needs one.”
Hale arrested Elias pending investigation.
Adrian refused to speak to him.
Claire wanted to believe Elias, but too many facts pointed in conflicting directions. His name appeared on the company filing. His initials appeared in the ledger. He controlled the house security. He knew about the trap inside cabinet 13.
“How did he know the lock contained a trigger?” she asked Hale.
“He claims he installed similar systems during his early security work.”
“For W.M. Advisory?”
“Yes.”
“Then he was more involved than he admitted.”
“Certainly.”
A financial review showed that the $900,000 had moved into an account opened using Elias’s identity, but the funds were withdrawn by someone else.
Security footage from the bank was no longer available.
However, an old signature card remained.
The handwriting belonged to Nathan Crowe.
Elias had been framed financially, but that did not prove his innocence in the larger operation.
Hale kept him in custody.
Without Elias monitoring the system, Adrian’s new security team reviewed Willowmere Road.
At noon, all camera feeds failed simultaneously.
A technician rushed to the property.
He found the central recorder disconnected and the backup power supply removed.
Someone had entered through an underground utility tunnel connected to a neighboring property.
By the time police arrived, the intruder was gone.
The blue folder Thomas had hidden inside the wall had disappeared.
So had the answering machine containing his recording.
“They are removing the evidence that names the Director,” Claire said.
“But why leave the storage cabinets?” Adrian asked.
“Because those files implicate Raymond’s group. The Director may want them blamed for everything.”
Hale agreed.
“Raymond could be both offender and future scapegoat.”
Claire returned to her protected apartment and found a package outside the door.
No courier appeared on camera.
Inside was the missing second page of Thomas’s letter.
Claire read it while Hale stood beside her.
Raymond is frightened of the Director. If the operation fails, the Director will erase every connection and leave Raymond responsible. That may be our only advantage. Raymond will betray anyone to save himself.
At the bottom, Thomas had written a phone number.
Hale traced it.
The number belonged to a prepaid phone activated two days earlier.
He called.
Raymond answered.
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Then Raymond said, “Thomas always believed he was more intelligent than everyone else.”
Hale placed the call on speaker.
Claire moved closer.
“Where is Lauren?” she asked.
Raymond laughed quietly.
“Safe from you.”
“I am not the person who put her in danger.”
“You took the house.”
“You planned to steal it after Thomas died.”
“It should have belonged to us.”
“Why?”
“Because we protected the Bennett family long before you appeared.”
“You committed fraud against strangers.”
“Thomas told you stories. He never understood the agreements.”
“Then meet with Hale and explain them.”
“I will meet Claire.”
“No,” Hale said.
Raymond ignored him.
“Come to Willowmere tomorrow at six. Bring written authorization for the $400,000 transfer.”
Claire looked at Hale.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then Lauren disappears, Nathan disappears, and every remaining file disappears with them.”
“You are threatening your own daughter?”
“I am offering a way to end this.”
Claire heard movement in the background.
A muffled voice.
Lauren’s voice.
“Dad, stop.”
Raymond ended the call.
Hale immediately rejected the proposed meeting.
“It is a trap.”
“Of course it is.”
“You will not attend.”
“Thomas said Raymond would betray anyone to save himself.”
“That does not make him safe.”
“We need him to believe I can still transfer the money.”
Adrian looked at Claire.
“You are considering this.”
“I am considering giving Hale a controlled opportunity to arrest them.”
Hale paced to the window.
“If we do this, the house will be covered by officers. You will wear a transmitter. You will not enter alone.”
Claire thought of Lauren’s warning.
May you like
Do not go back to the kitchen.
“That is where he will make me go,” she said.
